The brilliant young Hongkong-born pianist, David Fung, has won some of the most prestigious international music awards, first coming to notice as a prizewinner at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv.

Few artists capture the beauty and refinement of baroque music like Italian period instrument ensemble Europa Galante. Founded in 1990 by violinist, Fabio Biondi, the ensemble has become one of Italy’s most celebrated exponents of this glorious repertoire, honoured with an impressive list of awards including Choc de la Musique, five Diapason d’Or and Diapason d’Or of the Year. In Chiara’s Diary, Biondi has devised a programme drawing on the diary of a foundling child, abandoned in 1718 on the steps of the Venetian orphanage, Ospedale della Pietà, at the age of two months. The Pièta was renowned for giving its children music education, taught at the time by none other than Antonio Vivaldi. One especially talented violinist called Chiara left a diary, filled with notes about her music life, and centuries later rediscovered in the Pièta’s library archives.;In a programme reaching back to this 18th century prodigy, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante play works by Venetian composers written expressly for Chiara, and which she herself performed. The short film Chiara’s Diary will also feature as part of the concert.

The Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe has a special bond with Hong Kong: their debut in the city 30 years ago turned them into a household name across China. Now they return to celebrate their anniversary at the HKAF.

Yue opera is the only Chinese opera that features all-female troupes and the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua is foremost among them. Known for their poetic and graceful singing, the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua under leadership of opera superstar Mao Weitao, is also innovative and experimental.

This 30th anniversary special at the HKAF features Five Daughters Offering Felicitation, the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua’s most celebrated classic with a large cast that shows off the troupe’s wealth of talents; The Moon Over a Fountain, a new work specially created for the anniversary, paying homage to the musical heritage of Zhejiang region by bringing together its opera with its most famouserhu musician Hua Yanjun; and The New Butterfly Lovers, an award-winning reinterpretation of the Yue opera canon and China’s best-known tragic romance, often regarded as the nation’s Romeo and Juliet.

Like his frequent collaborator, Igor Stravinsky, Balanchine was a Russian emigré who settled in New York. Both were defining forces in 20th century culture. In merging traditional Russian technique with new world dynamism, Balanchine created a new style of “American” ballet. He changed the way we look at dance.

For years the exclusive property of New York City Ballet which commissioned it in 1967, Balanchine’s masterpiece was the first full-length abstract ballet, a jewel-themed triptych, inspired by the beauty of precious stones. Each of its three acts focuses on one dazzling gem, each also evoking a different city: Paris in Fauré’s dreamy French romantic music for Emeralds; New York, with Stravinsky’s score evoking jazz-age Broadway, in Rubies; the classical grandeur of Balanchine’s home town, Imperial St Petersburg, in Diamonds.

A jewel in the repertoire of many of the world’s great ballet companies, no other production compares to the Bolshoi’s, premiered in 2012. Performed by star soloists and its famous corps de ballet, it is simply breathtaking.

Inspired by Gustave Le Bon’s prophetic 1894 study of crowd psychology The Crowd: A Study of Popular Mind and Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, The Crowd is a searing play by China’s most produced living playwright Nick Yu, directed by award-winning Hong Kong actor-director Tang Wai-kit.

Set in Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, from the Cultural Revolution to the present day, The Crowd pitches the forces of irrational mass frenzy against the powerless struggle of the individual – with tragic consequences.

This daring collaboration between Shanghai and Hong Kong theatre makers investigates one man’s struggle to seek justice at all costs; and culminates in a rendezvous on a fateful day in Hong Kong. Will revenge settle old scores or open up new wounds?

The Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe has a special bond with Hong Kong: their debut in the city 30 years ago turned them into a household name across China. Now they return to celebrate their anniversary at the HKAF.

Yue opera is the only Chinese opera that features all-female troupes and the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua is foremost among them. Known for their poetic and graceful singing, the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua under leadership of opera superstar Mao Weitao, is also innovative and experimental.

This 30th anniversary special at the HKAF features Five Daughters Offering Felicitation, the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua’s most celebrated classic with a large cast that shows off the troupe’s wealth of talents; The Moon Over a Fountain, a new work specially created for the anniversary, paying homage to the musical heritage of Zhejiang region by bringing together its opera with its most famouserhu musician Hua Yanjun; and The New Butterfly Lovers, an award-winning reinterpretation of the Yue opera canon and China’s best-known tragic romance, often regarded as the nation’s Romeo and Juliet.